Cosmopolis was good, perhaps even very good. It was genius in its purest form. It was a masterpiece. However, I must admit that I completely have no idea what was going on in the ending.

This movie had many aspects that made it truly remarkable. The cinematography was stunning, capturing the essence of the story in a visually captivating way. The acting was also top-notch, with the actors bringing the characters to life in a believable and engaging manner.

But despite all its strengths, the ending left me feeling confused and a bit disappointed. It seemed to lack the clarity and resolution that I was hoping for. Maybe I missed something, or maybe the director had a different vision for how the story should conclude.

Overall, Cosmopolis is a movie that I would recommend to others, but I would also caution them about the somewhat ambiguous ending. It's a film that will make you think and leave you with a lot to discuss, but it may not provide all the answers that you're looking for.

Once in Jr. High, I engaged in a game of rugby (or as close as one could get weighing a mere 95lbs at a small private school in Provo, UT). During the 'game', I was completely blindsided. After pulling my face out of the dirt, there was a moment when I tasted both blood and clarity. Everything seemed to possess a pure obviousness while simultaneously exploding. It was a strange and intense experience.

This same feeling washed over me after putting down 'End Zone'. I really shouldn't have been surprised. I've been hit hard by DeLillo before, many times in fact. 'Mao II' and 'Libra' both left me flat on my back. 'White Noise' and 'Underworld' both hinted at, promised some grand apotheosis about life or the world.

'End Zone' delves into language, war, men, and death. It's also about football. But don't be misled; war is not football, only football is football and only war is war. DeLillo desires to play linguistic games at Logos College. He wants to push language across the field, have blood in the syntax and grass in the prose. He envisions his gladiators speaking prose poems, taking courses in "the untellable", discussing Wittgenstein, or screaming in German. He wants a university separated from the world, isolated in Texas, in a space that exists almost separately from everything but football and fat girls. He aims to explore the chants of men, the dialogue of competition. The book could have easily devolved into a silly farce, a parade of prose, or an onanistic literary game, but DeLillo approaches it with such subversive energy that he makes you forget who is holding the ball or why the game even matters.

"The language game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean, it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there—like our life" - Wittgenstein

The review claims that it is "Clever, playful and funny." However, I had a completely different perception. I found it to be depressing, strange and black.

Also, as the narrator wrote at the beginning of Part 2, "The spectator, at this point, is certain to wonder whether he must endure a football game." But that's not the case for me! Thirty pages dedicated to any football game is simply excessive for anyone, especially someone like me who knows nothing about the code of football. By the way, it seemed that the focus on violence in this football code was exaggerated.

I couldn't help but feel that the supposed cleverness and playfulness were lost on me, overshadowed by the depressing and strange elements. The portrayal of the football game in such detail was overwhelming and made it difficult for me to engage with the story.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience for this particular work, but based on my experience, I would not describe it as "Clever, playful and funny" as the review does. Instead, it left me with a sense of unease and a desire to look for something more uplifting and engaging.

Don DeLillo's latest novel is a truly original work that takes readers into the captivating world of college sports.

The story unfolds in a unique and engaging manner, presenting a vivid and detailed portrayal of the characters and their experiences within this specific setting.

DeLillo's masterful writing style brings the story to life, making it a must-read for fans of his work and anyone interested in exploring the complex and often overlooked aspects of college sports.

The novel offers a fresh perspective on the world of athletics, delving into the personal and professional lives of the characters and the challenges they face.

It is a thought-provoking and entertaining read that will keep you hooked from beginning to end.

Highly recommended for those seeking a unique and engaging literary experience.

Gary Harkness, a former standout high school football player in New York State, had once lived his father's dream. However, he squandered full scholarships at prestigious football universities like Penn State and ended up on the unknown team of Logos College in the desolate West Texas desert. Gary, the team's starting full back, claims that football players are simple folk. But his words suggest otherwise. He is drawn to the desert, troubled by silence, and too thoughtful to be confined to the chalked borders of the playing field. Will he sabotage his football career again?

The new head coach at Logos, Emmett Creed, a two-time national champion, has his own demons. After breaking the jaw of a back-up quarterback, he has been in scandalous exile. Creed, a complex figure described as "a land-locked Ahab who paced and raged," is determined to teach his players about pain, sacrifice, and character. He has also changed the team name and recruited Columbia Taft Robinson, the first black student at Logos.

Don DeLillo's "End Zone" is more than just a novel about football. It explores themes such as language, body identity, and history. Gary is obsessed with nuclear war, reading about it, imagining the destruction of cities, and auditing ROTC classes. The novel contrasts the violence of football with that of thermonuclear war. DeLillo's language is idiosyncratic and entertaining, with witty dialogue, pithy lines, and atmospheric descriptions. However, the ending may be too abrupt and enigmatic for some readers. Audiobook reader Fleet Cooper does an excellent job with the voices, bringing the characters to life. While football fans may be disappointed, fans of DeLillo or of philosophical satires will likely enjoy "End Zone."

End Zone / 0-14-008568-8

In this remarkable allegory that intricately weaves together football, war, and destruction, "End Zone" masterfully delves into the classic Delillo preoccupation with mass death and global devastation.

His characters don shirts adorned with mushroom clouds on the front, brood over board games centered around apocalyptic scenarios, and engage in deep meditation in the desert about the nature of death, the meaninglessness of life, and the pain of existence. The football analogy is not only apt but also carefully explored, yet there is far more going on here. Even if one doesn't have an affinity for, understand, or follow football, the message is most certainly not lost.

Just like "White Noise", "End Zone" revolves around the inner dynamics of an isolated college community. Students fret over their weight, football skills, philosophy, term papers, and their futures. However, in Delillo's intense vision, this ordinary stress attains a heightened, almost ultimate status. Similar to "White Noise", "End Zone" prompts us to scrutinize our lives for a deeper meaning, but the meaning we uncover might not be to our liking.

~ Ana Mardoll

It was... fine.

Part 1 was truly great. There are several fantastic passages that vividly describe the outcomes of nuclear war and society's hidden obsession with mass death and violence. The comparisons between the ritualistic qualities of militarism and their counterparts in football or sports in general are extremely interesting and thought-provoking.

However, Part 2 bored me to tears. It is a long 20+ page recount of a football game. While it may serve a purpose in relation to the themes, it really didn't need to be that long. It felt like a drag and made me lose interest in the story.

Part 3 was okay, better than Part 2 but nowhere near as good as Part 1. At this point, it just seemed to be dragging on. It did resolve some of the oddities in Part 1, but the incorporation of very odd disjointed dialogues and humor felt a bit forced.

I definitely liked it more than the first time I read it, but it's still not something that I'm really into. And quite frankly, I don't really feel like talking more about it than that.

I saw this book on someone's desk, and it immediately brought back memories of my college days when I loved reading it.

Back then, as an English major, I was focused on reading the works of the greats. However, this postmodern work by a critically acclaimed Italian-American writer, Endzone, stood out to me.

I found it not only accessible but also extremely clever. The unique style and narrative of the book made it a captivating read.

In fact, I believe that even some high school students would enjoy it. Its engaging storyline and thought-provoking themes have the potential to appeal to a wide range of readers.

Overall, Endzone is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a good read. It combines elements of postmodernism with a relatable and interesting plot, making it a truly enjoyable experience.

Whether you're a literature enthusiast or just someone who enjoys a good story, Endzone is definitely worth checking out.

Good just didn’t grip me.

It felt rather lackluster and failed to truly engage my interest.

The whole experience was just kind of meh.

And then there’s the thing about naming the head coach Hauptfuhrer.

That’s just plain funny.

It seems like such an odd and unexpected choice.

It definitely stands out and makes you do a double-take.

You can’t help but wonder what the reasoning behind it was.

Maybe it was a deliberate attempt to be different or make a statement.

Either way, it adds an element of quirkiness to the situation.

Overall, while the good didn’t really grip me, the funny name of the head coach Hauptfuhrer at least provided a bit of entertainment.

It’s one of those things that you’ll remember and talk about later.

Who knows, maybe it’ll even become a bit of a legend.

When it comes to sports in the United States, I have a certain attitude. I don't have a strong aversion to baseball and basketball, but American Football holds next to no interest for me. I might watch the Super Bowl very rarely, but I don't truly understand the entire set of rules. All I know is that a touchdown or field goal means points on the scoreboard.

If End Zone had been written by anyone else, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought. However, my goal is to read all of DeLillo's novels, and there are only three left. So, I would have had to get to this one eventually. Around the 100-page mark, there was a rather long section of the narrative that delved into the details of a game in progress. To me, it might as well have been written in Cantonese because I had no idea what was happening. Fortunately, aside from a few other smaller passages that explored the specifics of the game, I was surprised to find quite a bit to like about this book.

The camaraderie between the players and staff off the field was definitely a highlight. Parts of it were also genuinely funny, and I can only think of White Noise when DeLillo has been this humorous. His runningback hero, Gary Harkness, whom I actually took a liking to, is clearly a young man in conflict. On one hand, football is his life, but on the other, he is disturbingly obsessed with the technology and theory of thermonuclear war. DeLillo does a neat job of throwing in parodies that fuse technical in-game slang with atomic elements like plutonium. Even Gary only really hooked up with his overweight and disorganized girlfriend because of the mushroom cloud on her dress, which immediately made me think of the great mushroom cloud scene in Underworld.

The team is also shaken by a series of strange occurrences that seem to follow one another, such as a fatal car accident, a plane crash, an inexplicable brain fever, and a star player quitting the game for ascetic mysticism. On a deeper level, the football aspect of the story in End Zone takes a backseat. While this was only his second novel and didn't feel like the DeLillo I know and love from his later works, there were still signs that this is a writer on the path to greatness. It was as if he was warming up on the runway, ready for takeoff. In fact, it was only a year or so later that he wrote Great Jones Street, which I thought was far superior to this one. That just leaves Ratner's Star, Zero K, and his latest, The Silence, which I think would be fitting to save until last.

I have a profound thought for you.

Science fiction is just starting to catch up with the Old Testament.

Look at how artificial nitrates are running off into the rivers and oceans, causing potential ecological disasters.

Observe as carbon dioxide emissions are melting the polar ice caps, leading to rising sea levels and threatening coastal communities.

Notice how the world's mineral reserves are dwindling, which could have significant implications for future generations.

See the horrors of war, famine, and plague that continue to afflict humanity.

Witness as barbaric hordes defile the temple of virgins, a symbol of purity and innocence.

And watch as wild stallions mount the prairie dogs, a scene that seems both strange and wild.

I initially said science fiction, but perhaps I really meant science.

Anyway, there seems to be some kind of mythical and/or historic circle-thing being completed here.

But still, I keep smiling.

I keep reassuring myself that there's nothing to worry about as long as the youth of America is aware of what's going on.

With their brains, brawn, good teeth, and tallness, they are the hope for a better future.

This is a remarkable book that delves deep into the realms of abstraction and the inefficiency of language as a symbol of a particular state of being.

It achieves this through the character of Gary Harkness, a football player and student at Logos College, who is fixated on the idea of nuclear war.

The book explores how language can cause alienation through various contexts, such as the isolationist slang of sports, the obscure and acronym-laden technical language of war, and the cold abstraction of statistics.

It juxtaposes this language with the physical world of football, where humanity can reach its full potential in physical combat, which is strategic yet not as removed and distant as long-distance bombing.

The book also contemplates the dark mirror that technology holds up to the earth and the cyclical nature of birth and destruction, similar to how technology emerges from the mud just as the mud is born from the stars, and how technology may ultimately send us back to the mud.

This is perhaps one of my top five favorite books of all time.

Most recently, I read this near-perfect novel. The scene where they play football in the snow and gradually eliminate the options until it's just running plays up the gut is simply indescribable (and interestingly, it mimics some of the book's themes).

Anyway, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.